Parentheses
by The Anonymite
Summary: Axel muses and remembers - and feels. Psychological fiddly bit with Axel's death and whatnot. "Damn kid. Not bringing me flowers..."


**a/n**: So... this is my first foray into KH-dom - forgive the potential suck of this. It's a bit of a hot mess.

:D

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

Have you ever been a self-aware being? One that is capable of giving thought to life and death, synonymous contradictions that they are?

Axel has, and as he observes his deepening state of nonexistence, he can't help musing that being a nonentity really isn't all that different from being an anomaly.

As he fades, he hovers, not bothering to watch his Roxas-without-the-X scamper away. His incorporeal eyes close, an intangible smile fixing on his would-be face, and he drifts down Memory Lane, floating there, so many scattered atoms filling a space that once was him. Then again, how could he have been him if he had never existed?

Technicalities. People (himself included) frequently insisted, way back when, when he was still technically there (you know – _solid_), that, as Nobodies, they didn't really exist. Glitches in the systems of the living - contradictions. Impossibilities. After all, the Laws of Nature say (none to specifically, but hey, who is Axel to argue with the Higher Ups?) that people can't exist without hearts. If only he could track down his Heartless, poke it a few times with a chakram to see what it had to say…

* * *

He blinks (only he doesn't – you can't blink if you don't have eyelids), shakes his head (only he doesn't… you get the point), wonders faintly at his scatterbrained state, laughs at the thought ("Scatterbrained! Because my brains are _scattered_! Get it? I'm stray, unattached atoms! My brains aren't bonded! I don't _have_ a brain anymore!"… Not knowing when to stop, because he doesn't have anyone to tell him that he isn't being funny anymore, because Sora-with-an-X has returned to his body-with-a-Heart, and none of the other Organization members are capable of comprehending humor, what with not being able to feel anything, and he's also dead [though he can't be dead if he never existed] and all that shit…), and renews his purpose.

Purpose…

Purpose…..

* * *

Eyes blink, eyes of memory, as he stares at that befuddled, angry blond with the bedhead-hair and the pouty lips, the one that looks so much like that twerp with the Keyblade, only Sora doesn't have blond bedhead-hair, and he smiles too much for his lips to be pouty, and he wouldn't let himself be angry for twelve seconds, because anger is a _dark_ emotion, and God (God? Don't even get Axel _started_ on God, though he has to admit, there's a part of him that hopes to high Heavens that God is real, because if that load of bullshit exists, then maybe his personal load of bullshit [namely, his life] exists, too)… God knows that Sora can't feel _dark_ emotions, because he's the fucking epitome of clean-clean whiteness! They should… smack his face on some cleaning products, replace the bald guy with his spikey, smiling face and dub him the next Mr. Clean!

Alas, Axel digresses. He shakes his head again, blinking eyes-formerly-known-as-Green back into the memory, mouth moving in question:

"Who's the kid?"

Roxas chooses that moment to look offended, eyebrows lowering, scrunching together, creasing his forehead all to Hell, though he would have to try harder than that to get the kicked puppy look out of those baby-blues – the kid just looks too confused and terrified to pull off that level of Serious. Axel nearly snickers.

"Looks like the Keyblade Crusader," Larxene simpers, honey-sweet voice echoing off the walls of the white room, drawing Roxas' frown her way.

"Where am I? Why won't you people answer me?" His voice is rough around the edges, filled with uncertainty, the ugly head of his false bravado rearing, drawing a snort of laughter from Larxene.

"You're in Castle Oblivion, young doppleganger. Don't be nervous – we might not have Hearts, but that doesn't mean we don't know how to treat our guests." She sneers down at him, eyebrows arching, imperious, like a bird of prey. Axel watches, green eyes blinking. Behind them, dead Axel watches alive Axel, watching his mind, his fingers, wondering vaguely at the sensation of… sensation, musing that he'll miss it greatly in the future, but that he really can't be bothered to worry about it right now. It's getting to the good part…

Wait for it…

Wait for it….

"-xene, the boy is frightened. Don't you think we should explain before you start antagonizing him?" Luxord, considerate as always. Too bad he isn't this considerate when they play poker… (Except, you know, he isn't being considerate in the first place – sarcasm, mocking laces his tone, one blonde eyebrow arched, lips quirked into that damn-irritating smirk. Then again, who is Axel to get irritated? He doesn't _have_ emotions.)

"Oh, pardon me, Luxord. I just wasn't thinking!" And she laughs, haughty, bitter-sounding. Roxas shivers, eyes darkening as he takes an involuntary step back. There's so much malice in the room, he can almost _feel_ it –

And then he freezes, eyes widening, head tilting to the side, when he realizes that his fear is entirely rationalized, self-imposed – his brain telling him that he should be scared, should be confused, should be lost and small and squeaky, when, in actuality, he isn't feeling much of anything at the moment. His shoulders slump, head falling slightly, and when he looks back up, there just… isn't anything… _there_. Nobody home. Ding dong, Roxie! You in there? Show us that sparkling smile! Roooxiiie!

Wait for it…..

Aha! There it is! There's the moment he's been waiting for!

Eyes an alarming shade of malachite meet those blank, azure ones, and Axel's gloved hands tighten in the folds of his robe. He feels… sad, because he had been so enthralled (passively, of course) by Roxas'… genuine emotion. Too bad it was false after all…

Something clicks in Axel's head, and his back straightens abruptly.

"Hey, wait… doesn't that make him…" Scarlet brows knit together, and he looks up to the highest seat, waiting for the High and Mighty One to speak and enlighten them. He's so falsely confused that he doesn't even notice the smidgeon of real emotion he felt there for a second, the sadness, but dead Axel is grinning his immaterial grin behind those empty green eyes, because that right there is the start of it, the start of that long road towards being alive, the start of Axel's adventure into _feeling_, and he only waits around long enough to hear it announced that the hollow blond standing in their midst is just as screwed and Heartless as the rest of them – oh! And he can use a Keyblade, too! Gee, how convenient.

* * *

Dead Axel sighs a dead sigh, laying back and unexisting for a moment, feeling a glow from _feeling_, glad that he's known Roxas long enough to get as much from him as he has. Watching the kid grow more and more jaded towards the whole fuckhole had been simultaneously amusing and heart-wrenching, both things he was perfectly willing to feel at the time, what with them being shadows of actual emotions. Feeling is just… it's so nice! It makes you feel so valid, so relevant – so _real_.

Sora has surely discovered the Proof of Existence by now. A vaguely grim feeling weighs on Axel's heart (funny, but he feels more in touch with that impossible organ now that he has ceased to tentatively exist – he can almost feel it swelling and squeezing as it pumps vitality through his diffused veins), thinking on those baby-blues (so very Roxas-shaped) boring holes into the gravestones of doomed Nobodies. He can almost see Sora's head tilting to the side, looking not so much like a kicked puppy (Roxas… sweet, terrible Roxas…) but… more of an… insanely curious one that's contemplating digging underneath the odd, glowy red plaque with the silhouetted chakrams on it, because ohboy!ohboy!, there might be a tennis ball underneath it.

Attempting to cheer himself up, he forces a grin, cackles.

"Damn kid didn't even bring me flowers," he says (but he doesn't, because you need lungs to push air through vocal cords [that, of course, you need to _resonate_] to wiggle sound into an oral cavity [that, of course, you need to _articulate_] to "say", and he doesn't even have eyelids to blink anymore), cackles again, sighs again, unexists again.

"Roxas…"

* * *

He blinks into the green eyes again, staring down at the bedhead-hair with one of his bastardly smirks attached to his face. Roxas is clad in black, looking like all the rest of them, eyes all hollow and tired-looking, body language angry and sad. He digs furrows in his forehead with a frown, and Axel ruffles his hair, feigning playfulness just as well as he feigns every other interpersonal communicatory skill.

"Relax, Roxas. It's not as bad as you-"

"If you tell me that it's not as bad as I think it is _one more time_, I swear to God, Axel, I will gut you with my Keyblade." His eyes narrow. Axel's grin stretches wider, face almost cracking in half as he leans forward, putting a hand on Roxas' head to hold him in place.

"Ah, little Sora clone. Always with the violence." His eyes glint venomously. Roxas ducks from under his hand, scuffing away from him with a glare.

"You can talk, you fucking pyromaniac."

"Roxas!" A surge of heartfelt exasperation has him sighing as he traipses after the little Nobody (really more of an Everybody, in Axel's book. Funny how fast these things develop.) "Look, would you let me talk?"

"Did I ever say you couldn't?"

"No, but you ignored me. I'd like it if you'd listen and try to take my words to heart."

Roxas pauses, fingers finding the bridge of his nose and pinching.

"Tactful, Axel. Fucking tactful."

If he wasn't so distracted with trying to convince Roxas that… well, that their boat wasn't the worst they could possibly be in, he would giggle at the tugging in his heart, because Roxas is just so glorious when he's feigning frustration.

"You could be a Heartless! Do you really want to be a Heartless?"

"Gee, Axel, I don't know. Would I prefer being a mindless, soul-eating _guttersnipe_ over being aware enough of my predicament to spend the rest of my emotionless days wallowing in my own self-pity? _That's a shitty-ass question_." Really, his sarcasm knows no bounds.

"I didn't say it was fantastic, but I think it's better to be aware of it all than to spend your days munching on the metaphysical manifestation of people's internal organs." Green eyes roll heavenward.

"I don't know. Hearts sound pretty tasty to me." Oh, _Roxie_! So glum! So bitter!

Axel resigns himself to silence, padding along beside the mopey doppleganger, wishing that he didn't know the intent behind Roxas' presence in their midst. Stupid Keyblade…

He feels anger towards the Organization, frustration towards Roxas, and heartache _about_ Roxas, all underlaid with a weird… glow, a warmth caused by the blond at his side, because no matter how miserable Roxas is, he always makes Axel smile.

If only Axel could figure out how to return the favor.

* * *

Axel steps back, metaphysical frown aimed at the floor. He doesn't want to admit it, but that really wasn't the nicest time in his life. Sure, feeling all warm and fuzzy all the time was exhilarating, but he had more fun later on, when Roxas' misery coalesced into a dark amusement with it all, transforming him from some brand of mopey kid into a hateful, snickering individual that sat back with Axel and watched the world spin (because, really, what else can you do when you're an anomaly waiting for the sun to smile on your pale, tear-streaked face?)

In his own defeated, entirely pessimistic way, he figures that that period, those few months when Roxas was as close to content with his existence as could be expected were the Universe's way of smiling on him. Sure, he had set quite a few people on fire by then, had condemned more than a handful of poor Hearts to festering away in Kingdom Hearts, waiting to be used for… whatever the Hell they were planning to use it for (he tends to get a little fuzzy on the details – Xemnas is always trying to make it sound flowerier than it really is, which, honestly, makes it all the more confusing. Who does he think he is? Luxord? Yeesh), had really not done much good for the whole of Existence, but really, his Wheel of Fortune had to turn over at some point, didn't it?

Well, if it did, (he smiles, sadness lingering in his eyes for a few seconds) then those few little months were it. They were all he got to be happy, and you know what?

He had been.

* * *

Axel sighs, kicking his feet against the edge of Roxas' bed. He's bored. Content, but bored.

Roxas is leaning against the bed by his legs, a book open on his lap, nose buried in its pages (not literally, mind you, though Axel is getting rather worried about his eyesight, what with the dim lighting he's always reading in, and how close he holds the book to his face, and how late he stays up reading, and he really could go on for a while, so it's usually best to get him off the topic quickly, but they were Roxas' _eyes_. How could someone just… lose their vision? They were _eyes_. They had to see, or they weren't… they weren't eyes.) (He likes Roxas' eyes too much.), and he has been thus for…

"Rox, it's been two hours. Don't you think we should-"

"No."

"But, Roxas-"

"I'm reading."

Axel frowns, leaning over to stare at the words in the blond's lap, scarlet eyebrow lifting.

"I can see that, Rox. We're probably meant to be doing something right now, though."

A small puff of air comes from the pouty lips, baby-blues closing to keep the emptiness in, golden-brown lashes meshing like the teeth (they always look like teeth to Axel. It's not like he's seen one in person, though… The library is good for that sort of thing) of a Venus flytrap.

"There's nothing to do, Axel."

"Well, sure there is!"

Pale fingers tap on the page, blue eyes slitting open to watch their twitching, halting two-step.

"There isn't ever anything to do."

"There's _always_ something to do!"

A laugh, harsh and choked, slips out, his eyes squeezing shut, plunging him into darkness, red dancing on the inside of his eyelids, a show of Axel colors, just for him. They open, peer blankly out at the world. If Axel was facing him, his heart would hurt. It's just… Roxas gets so empty sometimes. He knows how much Axel likes to pretend that being together "completes them", makes them "whole" and "hearty", but really, Axel just makes him sad, because he knows that he would feel so much for him if he had emotions.

Axel squirms, bending awkwardly forward to prop his chin on Roxas' skull, not hearing the hollowness echoing in the space that should have held the kid's heart, even though it should be so obvious, because Roxas is so… Roxas.

"Cheer up, Roxie," he murmurs, watching the wall watch them with its wall eyes. The walls are so observant.

If Roxas was a mean person, he would scoff, push Axel away, go back to reading his book, but Roxas isn't a mean person, so he settles for sighing, ducks out from under Axel's chin, tosses his book on the bed, trying not to care that he's losing his place as the pages snap shut. Axel grins his Axel grin, and Roxas gives him the face that serves as an apt substitute for a genuine display of friendly emotion, something along the lines of a nod of acknowledgment.

Axel doesn't notice his conflict.

Axel never notices his conflict.

Axel refuses to notice.

And by the time he does

it's too late.

* * *

"Such a silly bookworm Roxie," he intones, flipping around theoretically to gaze at the place where his corpse is supposed to be, but hey, when one dissolves instead of dropping dead, it's a bit hard to have a corpse.

He has nothing to say about anything. There isn't ever anything to say about what he feels when he's near Roxas, because, you know, it's pretty damn self-explanatory.

Vague echoes of emotion bounce around what he likes to think of as his chest, eliciting a flash of used-to-be-rather-white-and-pointy teeth, a softening of used-to-be-rather-green-and-catlike eyes.

He can feel Roxas' hair as he ruffles it in some memory or other, and he can smell him as he falls asleep in another, and he can hear his smile in another, and another, and another. The ones of him smiling are Axel's favorites, and he supposes that that makes him a walking cliché, but hey, he's abnormal in every other aspect – why not shoot for a little normalcy every once in a while?

* * *

He is getting tired. Remembering is rough on the nerves, especially when one is a disembodied consciousness of sorts, and he can feel the atoms that he formerly held claim to beginning to grow agitated from all of this lingering. They long to move onto bigger and better things, and honestly, he can't blame them.

It's time for something big.

Something he'll be able to feel resonating in his bones.

Poignancy… he needs poignancy here.

The most poignant emotion he's ever felt…

* * *

"Roxas! Would you calm down for two seconds?" Axel is panicking, blood pounding in his ears, his face pale, ghostlike behind his tattoos.

"Nah, Ax. Calming down would require having emotions to calm, and you know what? _I don't have any of those._ So just… go away, would you? I'm trying to do something here." Roxas looks… he looks… happy. It's terrifying.

"Roxas, stop!" Eyes are wide. "_Roxas_." Voice a hiss.

Roxas disappears around a corner, Axel following him, and they both reappear on a street corner, Roxas growing annoyed.

"Why are you following me?"

"Because I'm trying to get you to _slow down_ and _reevaluate the situation_. Roxas, this is _crazy!_"

"What? What's crazy, Axel? Me wanting to get some goddamn answers for _once_ in my _godforsaken_ **life**? 'Cause I'd say that's a pretty damn solid reason for leaving."

Axel groans, covering his face with his hand for a moment, heart ripping open as he glares down into the angry baby-blues.

"Roxas."

"Axel."

A staring contest ensues, and Axel seizes him by the shoulders, trying to cement him down, trying to… just… _keep him here_.

Roxas looks unimpressed, merely blinks at him for several seconds before disappearing in a swirl of darkness, leaving Axel's hands empty, his heart feeling more hollow than it has in a long time.

When he finds him again, his back is pressed against a column, shrouded in darkness, and Roxas would walk right by if Axel didn't call out, hoping against hope that he has changed his mind, that he'll curb his curiosity and stay. That heart of his… so hollow, thoughts of Roxas vanishing from his life filling it to underflowing. (You know – it's so full that it's empty. Axel doesn't know what empty feels like anymore.)

"Your mind's made up?"

Roxas' footsteps falter, halt, and he glances over his shoulder. He hesitates.

"Why did the Keyblade choose me?" He refuses to look at Axel, eyes fixed on a storefront. "I have to know."

And, right there, Axel has had it.

He pushes away from the stone, lunging forward, anger and frustration and sorrow pulling him into a hostile hunch.

"You can't turn on the Organization!"

Really, he doesn't intend to sound as indignant as he does, as… hurt and offended, but he knows that Roxas knows what he really means by that.

_You can't turn on _me_._

He shoves back a shudder, taking another step towards Sora-with-an-X, fists clenched, eyes boring holes into that narrow back.

"You get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!"

And, really, what else would this be about? He's scared – scared for Roxas, scared for himself, scared for what will happen when Roxas leaves, taking all of his feeling with him. He doesn't want to be empty, and he doesn't want Roxas gone, and he doesn't want Roxas _dead_, and death is what happens when you break from the Organization. Elimination didn't sound too hot to the part of him (meaning _all_ of him) that loves the bitter blond, and it takes all he has not to wrestle the kid to the ground and… and… tie him up, and refuse to ever let him go. Because he can't leave.

He just can't.

And then Roxas negates it all, shatters Axel into tiny pieces, his head barely turning as he utters the words that condemn Axel to his apathetic downfall.

"No one would miss me."

With that, he is gone, and as Axel slumps, muttering to himself, he acknowledges, towards the back of his consciousness, that he won't ever see Roxas again unless he looks very, very hard at Sora.

"That's not true… I would."

* * *

A sob rips from his concept of a chest, and he chooses this moment to be very, very glad that he's dead, because crying would really suck right now. Especially since it would be his first time…

* * *

He drifts, eyes on the ceiling, empty, free, relaxed, mildly surprised that he's not feeling sad. He just spent the last eternity paging through his memories of Roxas like his past was a book, and really, who else would be capable of dredging up the genuine emotion that he lost along the way than the blond himself?

But hey, who is he to complain? Sadness is almost worse than being hollow.

Almost.

He floats, thinking, feeling, unexisting. He wonders if he'll have a flurry of emotions to carry him through his next life.

He wonders if he'll have a next life at all.

He wonders about gravestones, and about Roxas, and he fades, hoping that he's remembered, hoping that there's proof enough of his existence for God (God? Don't get Axel started on God.) to smile on him and grant him a body to be reborn into.

He fades, and as he does, he cackles.

"Damn kid. Not bringing me flowers…"

* * *

His life… it was really just a parenthetical rant, you know? Nobody particularly cares what it has to say, and it interrupts the natural rhythm of things.


End file.
